Lilian Alessa, Ph.D. and Andrew Kliskey, Ph.D.  Utilizing innovative methodologies to answer questions relevant to achieving coupled social and ecological resilience. Research interests of the Resilience and Adaptive Management Group (RAM) focus on "Big Picture" thinking, incorporating a vision that weaves the many threads of multi-disciplinary research into a cohesive and integrated framework for building sustainable communities.   Our work examines how interactions between landscape transformation, ecological processes, and humans contribute to whether societies succeed or fail, and is based on the precept of social-ecological systems, that is, people as part of the ecosystem.  Current research projects in Western Alaska and the Russian Far East focus on the relationships humans have with water and examine the response of people to changes in their water resources, including effects on their food systems. We integrate ecological and social data using a range of tools including field-based interviews, geographic information systems and agent based modeling. Potential REU projects for which we invite student applications to the RAM Group include 1) Studying how water quality of specific water sources relate to and affect community perceptions of those sources, and 2) Examination of various biological, physical and social measures of vulnerability in Alaskan and Russian Far East communities. Projects may involve a short period of fieldwork in Alaskan Native communities located in northwest Alaska. Further details, publications, streaming media and research notes can be found at: http://ram.uaa.alaska.edu

Tim Hinterberger, Ph.D. Vertebrate Development, Gene Regulation
Dr. Hinterberger’s research focuses on the genetic mechanisms that control the development of skeletal muscle cells and some of many the physiological changes that affect muscle. Most of this work is being done in the frog Xenopus laevis, a widely used model vertebrate organism. Skeletal muscle embryonic development is regulated by many genes, including one called MRF4. In adult human muscles, MRF4 expression levels also respond to exercise. We have used transgenic techniques to identify some of the upstream genomic sequences responsible for activation of MRF4 expression in Xenopus embryos and found substantial differences from the activating sequence regions in mammalian MRF4 genes. A number of potential REU student projects are available in Hinterberger’s laboratory. (1) Students can use gene cloning and engineering techniques to help construct new Xenopus MRF4 test sequences and create transgenic frogs with them. In situ hybridization and tissue sectioning will be used to localize the cells that normally express MRF4 in frog embryos and compare them to those that express the inserted test genes. (2) Students can assist in a new project to determine whether certain amino acids, that are essential for muscle growth in response to exercise, affect MRF4 expression in a mouse cell culture model. (3) Another research interest involves neuroscience as well as muscle biology—determining the Xenopus MRF4 gene sequence regions that cause MRF4 expression levels to change when the motor nerves to a muscle are severed. Students can learn to perform surgical denervation of frog muscles and later harvest those muscles for analysis of MRF4 mRNA levels.

Jocelyn Krebs, Ph.D.  Transcriptional response to stress
Research interests in Dr. Krebs’ laboratory focus on understanding how cells respond rapidly and specifically to external stressors, such as sudden changes in temperature, DNA damaging agents, or heavy metals. Her laboratory uses the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae as a powerful model for understanding the cellular response to stress in the chromatin context. Current projects in herlaboratory include the study of the underlying molecular mechanisms that enable cells to rapidly induce gene expression in response to stressors such as heat shock and high doses of copper. Her group is also interested in the ways in which the stress response is attenuated after the initial stress occurs, and how the failure to properly shut down the stress response can harm the organism. In the case of temperature stress, an REU student could be involved with studies of the effects of chromatin structure on the regulation of heat shock protein (HSP) gene expression. In the case of copper exposure, a student could be involved with studies of how chromatin structure modulates the activation and shutdown of the CUP1 metallothionein, a protein that functions to sequester toxic copper ions in the cell.   http://afjek.uaa.alaska.edu/